Assistant band leader Dwight McBean (left) and the Musical Apostles. - Contributed

Because the goal of Sunday's concert at The Church of St Thomas the Apostle (popularly called Kingston Parish Church) was to raise funds, there may be some hesitancy on the part of organisers to deem the event an overall success. It attracted, after all, less than a half-full church.

But no one there could doubt the concert's artistic success. The performances in music, song, poetry and dance elicited enthusiastic applause from the audience.

Titled 'Dwight McBean and Friends at Christmas', the concert included items by McBean, who both plays the organ at the church and assists in teaching the steel band; Barbara Lloyd, another organist; singers Andrew Lawrence, Velia Espeut and Carole Reid; professional steel panists Gay Magnus and David Aarons; actress Grace McGhie-Brown, who read poetry; Yekengale, on keyboard and piano, and Stephanie Belnavis, a dancer.

In addition, The Musical Apostles, the recently formed steel band the church shares with Christ Church Vineyard Town, played a few songs. The concert was organised to raise funds for the purchase of additional instruments for the band and assist the continuing restoration of the church's 99-year-old pipe organ, only the second to have been installed.

The first, built in 1720 by European organ builder Samuel Green, was played by Samuel Felsted, who was the first organist in 1783 at St Andrew Parish Church and later Kingston Parish Church. This Jamaican had the distinction of being the composer of the first oratorio written in the New World.

Second organ

The Green organ was destroyed in the 1907 earthquake and the church got its second and present organ installed by the British company Henry Willis & Sons in 1909. After being damaged by Hurricane Charley in 1951, it was rebuilt and modernised in 1953.

Since then, further work has been done on it; work which continues even while the organ is being used. It sounded in good shape on Sunday when McBean and Lloyd played it, the former with a piece by Handel and the latter a composition by Bach, among others.

There were a number of highlights in the approximately 15-item programme, but for this reviewer the most remarkable was the playing by Magnus and Aarons of Schubert's Ave Maria on three tenor steel pans.

The sublime, deservedly popular piece was exquisitely rendered, with its extended notes cohesively delivered by the percussive instrument.

Both panists have degrees in music, Master of Ceremonies Vivian Crawford informed the audience, and it certainly is in accord with their mastery of their instrument that they have had years of study and practice. Aarons actually started playing the pan when he was nine, and Magnus has a master's degree with a specialisation in steel pan playing.

Extended applause was given to the first singer, Lawrence, after his opening pair of songs, Comfort Ye My People, from Handel's Messiah, and the singer's "favourite Christmas carol", O Come O Lord Emanuel. Demonstrating that he was both actor and singer, Lawrence, who has appeared in numerous Father HoLung and Friends musicals, used his marvellous voice, gestures, eyes and face to communicate with the audience.

McGhie-Brown also called on her considerable acting skills as she read poems from Easton Lee's collection of village tales, Behind the Counter. A particular pleasure for her listeners was Christmas Letter, a poem in which a poor country woman writes to her friend of the Christmas sights, sounds and activities in her district and her feelings about the time of year. Though apparently rambling, the poem is in fact tightly and thoughtfully structured.

From the MC came the information that between the time she started singing at age 12 and the present, Reid has sung with numerous choirs and theatre groups.

Beautiful tone

With McBean accompanying her on the organ, she seemed to pour her heart into her delivery of the carol, O Holy Night. Her tone was beautiful, her diction and modulation perfect and with the final phrase "O night divine", she raised both her voice and her audience to a great height.

Just before the intermission of the two-hour long concert, Reid and Espeut led the congregation and The Musical Apostles in the singing of the Jamaican carol, De Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy.

After the break, Espeut returned for a solo performance. She not only sang but entertained in a more general way as she chatted to the audience and encouraged participatory singing in Barry Chevannes' popular Christmas song Fi Mi God Great and Wonderful World.

She was accompanied on keyboard by Yekengale, who later played on piano a medley of tunes entitled Meditation on the Jackass. This clever arrangement included well-known tunes like Little Donkey, Hol' Im Joe and Jackass a Jump an Bray.

The entertainment ended with a brief, well-executed dance by Belnavis. Hampered by the confined space before the church's altar, she nevertheless pleased. The dance, was done to a recorded gospel song, After a While.

Following the vote of thanks by Yvonne Clarke, the People's Warden, the new rector of the church, Bishop Don Taylor, delivered the closing blessing.

Pianist Yekengale - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer